Dark Energy: Theory and Observations, Luca Amendola and Shinji Tsujikawa Cambridge U. Press, New York, 2010. $75.00 (491 pp.). ISBN 978-0-521-51600-6
Dark Energy, Yun Wang Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, Germany, 2010. $79.00 (244 pp.). ISBN 978-3-527-40941-9
Two teams of astronomers studying distant type Ia supernovae presented evidence in 1998 that the expansion of the universe is speeding up. From the time of Edwin Hubble, cosmologists had been trying to measure the slowing of the expansion due to gravity, so the discovery of cosmic acceleration instantly became one of the field’s most important developments. Subsequent observations, including more detailed studies of supernovae, along with independent evidence from clusters of galaxies, large-scale structure, and the cosmic microwave background, have now firmly established this remarkable finding.
Unraveling the physical origin of cosmic acceleration will be an important goal for fundamental physics in...
